NCSS Programming Comp
I just finished the NCSS programming comp (http://challenge.ncss.edu.au/). The competition runs over 5 week with 5 problems a week and 6 problems on the final week
NCSS offers two courses Simple and advanced, last year i participated in the Simple division and managed to come first, this year i went in the advanced division and found it much more challenging but still managed to achieve a 6th. However the course did teach me about things like regular expressions.
This year NCSS was also offering an embedded course (i participated in the beta for this, where was given the arduino board in my other projects). for the embedded course you paid for a circuit board based of the arduino with many sensors and outputs already built in.
The embedded division still has one more week to go, so il update this post with my results in that then.
Dangers
Spent a weekend fiddling with google app engine and created a program version of the xkcd comic dangers
my program can be found at - http://dangers-xkcd.appspot.com/
A friend posted the program on the xkcd irc and i immediately had many people trying to break it, but a quick regular expression and all was well
EDIT:
the code that extracts results from google seems to have broke when they updated their look, i currently dont have time to fix it but might get round to it in the future
MSN Wallchart V3
Got round to finishing this project up and giving it its own box and reprinting the photos, it ended up looking quite good. I also added a little buzzer for when people log in.
Finished and hung at last
On off button, Beep switch, Computer connection
Usualy covered by a pannel, and yes my soldering is messy
Doing the wiring on the the back was very frustrating, i spent a few hours doing it, and yes it is messy, very very messy
Project complete
Edit: i have since switched the arduino Decimila for a Stickduino (a cheaper bare bones arduino clone) so i can reclaim my arduino for other projects
MSN Wallchart V2
Figured out how to make MSN scripts communicate directly with the audrino board removeing the python middle stage, now the lights actualy turn off by themselves when the computer shuts down. Instead of the more manual method off pulling the cord out.
Pygame Game
After seeing the year 11/12 Software design and development projects at expo night i decided to try designing my own game using Python and Pygame. So far i have been quite successful see the screen shot of where i am up to currently
Current Stage
- Loads level From a text file
- You can spin checkpoints and enemies
- You re-spawn from checkpoints when you die
- Fade effect when you die
- Basic sound effects
- Stuff can hurt and kill you such as lava yoshis and holes
- Signs to inform you of stuff
Things i need/to do
- Better sprites for characters, backgrounds and such
- I also need more levels if you are interested in helping with this send me an email or leave a comment